Ways to rid of climbing shoes odor

A bleach solution and stiff nylon brush or toilet bowl cleaner. 

Here's why: It's my understanding that bacteria is what makes your shoes smell. Well, actually it's the bacteria's poop. IF you keep dirt out of your climbing shoes by NOT wearing flipflops, and dry your shoes out, they won't get manky. Finally, use antibacterial soap on your feet with a green abrasive schoch bright pad. 

Had the same issue a few months back and wasn’t too keen on putting baking soda in my shoes. I have some odor removing shoe bag things they say “no stink” and are yellow. These work decently. 

However with this particular pair of shoes the only thing that worked for me was putting the shoes in the freezer. Surprised this hasn’t been suggested yet. This works because the bacteria can’t survive at low temperatures. I left mine in for a day and smell was basically gone. 

Andrew Steavpack wrote:

Had the same issue a few months back and wasn’t too keen on putting baking soda in my shoes. I have some odor removing shoe bag things they say “no stink” and are yellow. These work decently. 

However with this particular pair of shoes the only thing that worked for me was putting the shoes in the freezer. Surprised this hasn’t been suggested yet. This works because the bacteria can’t survive at low temperatures. I left mine in for a day and smell was basically gone. 

I've got a couple pair I bought used (hey, they were cheap. I was quick to find out WHY.) that stink to holy hell. My own shoes never stink, for many of the reasons cited here - prompt drying, clean feet, socks (sometimes). Anyway, these bad boys are  my lab rats for curing stank once it sets in. Freezing did absolutely nothing.  Rubbing alcohol mobilized all the yellow dye in the leather (the entire shoe is now yellow) but only made a dent in the stench. Washing machine - pfft, no effect. I'm tempted to try the 270 F bake, but am afraid that'll soften the glues that hold the shoe together. It's way hotter than boiling water so maybe I'll toss these in with the lobsters this week and see if that helps.

TL. DR the key is preventing the stank in the first place. Dry your shoes ASAP. Every. Single. Time.

Awesome replies everyone!  Thank you   

Buy new shoes

Gunkiemike wrote:

I'm tempted to try the 270 F bake, but am afraid that'll soften the glues that hold the shoe together. It's way hotter than boiling water so maybe I'll toss these in with the lobsters this week and see if that helps.

That was a joke. I'm absolutely certain that would destroy the shoes. That's the temp that a typical autoclave gets to. It's like a 20 minute process with 4 of those minutes at or above 270. In reality, it's probably 15 minutes above boiling temp. I think you'd need to use a pressure cooker to achieve this at home.

I actually think that once a pair of shoes has reached critical stink, they can't be saved. I used to have a pair of those Addidas sandals with the hundreds of little rubber fingers. I wore them at work when I was a lifeguard. So yeah, they'd spend all day wet. Chlorinated but wet. I'd dip them in the pool most days. Soon enough, they developed the stink. This was actually worse than any climbing I've had but I've smelled others that were worse than my stuff. I sprayed them with the various cleaners and lysol and stuff like that at the pool. I wasn't worried about damaging them since they were mostly plastic. Nothing helped. At one point out of desperation, I took our powdered chlorine and mixed up a really concentrated soup and soaked them in there for most of the day. After that, they smelled of strong bleach and rotten shoes. I never got the stink out. I threw them away shortly afterward.

This tells me that whatever (bacteria poo) that causes the stink probably sticks around. If you took a deuce on the table, and poured bleach on it, but left it there, would your table still stink? The frozen deuce wouldn't be so bad, until it thawed. That makes sense. So unless you've got a way to scrub inside the fibers, at a microscopic level, I just don't think you'll have much luck.

This falls back to prevention. Dry shoes, clean feet, and maybe some antibacterial spray before they stink. 

CEDAR Shoe trees. I climb in Red Rock in the hot months. They work amazingly well

all you need is spare napkins, and an essential oil you like the smell of..

after climbs, just put a softly crumpled napkin diffuser into shoe... 

you can't stop the funk ;) might as well overpower it.

It's the bacteria buildup in your shoes that is causing the odor.  Wash them and you remove/kill the bacteria.  Everytihng else is just masking the problem.  Also, if you wash them then they will be clean again.  ;)

I'm gonna say it again. You need to kill the bacteria. Use bleach. All other methods are a waste of time. Here's my routine.

1. Fill shoes with hot, plain tap water. Scrub with a stiff nylon brush and even a blunt instrument to really scrape the mank out. Rinse. Repeat. 

2. Boil a bunch of water in a pot. Add bleach to water according to directions on bottle. Also, follow precautions on bottle. 

3. Pour some bleach solution into your shoes. Let penetrate 5 minutes or so. Rinse *thoroughly*. set out to dry.

*from here, anything else is overkill. I'd rather overkill it than underkill it any day, so I usually go at em with the bleach solution a couple more times. Maybe give them another scrub-down if you see fit; it's not an exact science, but it works. 

You can expect them to smell a little like bleach when you're done - no big deal. I haven't had glue separation, skin irritation, or any other negative side-effects, other than the color getting a little washed-out. **In the future, keep dirt out of your shoes by bringing wet-wipes to the crag to wipe your feet down before putting them in your climbing shoes. If you have manky feet to begin with, scrub them with antibacterial soap and a green scouring pad 2x/week.** That will take care of it.

I battle the funk by keeping my shoes dry, using dry pointe inserts ( drypointe.com/), and avoiding shoes that are full synthetic. Synthetic shoes always stink. Also, I try to keep my feet as clean as possible. Wear shoes on the approach, not sandals.

Lysol,  once my shoes start to smell I just spray a bunch of lysol into them (typically enough that it starts pooling a little bit in the bottom of the shoes and I can see it starting to seep through the outside of the shoes).  I let it dry, then the shoes smell great for another few months until I have to do it again.  I typically wear evolvs which are known to be stinky and the lysol works great, it kills of anything that makes them smell.

Newspapers! Crinkle up newspapers and put em in your shoes whenever they're not in use. I've been doing this ever since I heard about it almost 2 years ago and NO odor at all.

What worked for me was machine washing it, drying it then using 70% alcohol with lemongrass essential oil and just spray it.

I guess the lemongrass oil has something in it(I forgot the name) that kills the stinky bacteria.

Abdullah Mourad wrote:

Newspapers! Crinkle up newspapers and put em in your shoes whenever they're not in use. I've been doing this ever since I heard about it almost 2 years ago and NO odor at all.

Works great for sure, all my foot stank has been in check for years now.

Sprinkling in some Baking Soda has worked for me after climbing during the summer, and shoes are soaked with sweat and really stanky. I would guess that a few sprays of 50% vinegar and 50% water would help eliminate odor too, but have not tried that.  

Newspaper sounds like a great idea, I may have to try that. 

Brian L wrote:

Sprinkling in some Baking Soda has worked for me after climbing during the summer, and shoes are soaked with sweat and really stanky. I would guess that a few sprays of 50% vinegar and 50% water would help eliminate odor too, but have not tried that.  

Newspaper sounds like a great idea, I may have to try that. 

I tried baking soda in a pair of shoes once after hearing that it worked, it was the worst idea ever.  Yes, it does help with the smell, but when you climb in the shoes after putting the baking soda in them as your feet sweat it turns that baking soda residue into a slick paste inside the shoes that feels nasty and makes it so that your feet slide around in the shoes which really screws up your footwork.  I tried washing the baking soda out, but ever after using it I could never get that slimey feeling out of my shoes again.

Ken Noyce wrote:

I tried baking soda in a pair of shoes once after hearing that it worked, it was the worst idea ever.  Yes, it does help with the smell, but when you climb in the shoes after putting the baking soda in them as your feet sweat it turns that baking soda residue into a slick paste inside the shoes that feels nasty and makes it so that your feet slide around in the shoes which really screws up your footwork.  I tried washing the baking soda out, but ever after using it I could never get that slimey feeling out of my shoes again.

When I tried this method, I let the baking soda sit my my shoe for a day or so, then I shook the excess baking soda out of the shoes before climbing. I never tried climbing with a noticeable quantity of baking soda in my shoe. That does sound terrible, yes.

Ken Noyce wrote:

I tried baking soda in a pair of shoes once after hearing that it worked, it was the worst idea ever.  Yes, it does help with the smell, but when you climb in the shoes after putting the baking soda in them as your feet sweat it turns that baking soda residue into a slick paste inside the shoes that feels nasty and makes it so that your feet slide around in the shoes which really screws up your footwork.  I tried washing the baking soda out, but ever after using it I could never get that slimey feeling out of my shoes again.

Absolutely. Never put baking soda in the climbing shoe. It never comes out. So fkn slippery

I toured Celestial Seasonings Tea in Boulder a few weeks ago and they mentioned people use their tea bags in smelly shoes.  I haven't tried it, but maybe worth a shot.  Something with mint in it I suppose?